tarted out from Nashville on an offensive campaign,
probably with no intention of going beyond Murfreesboro', in
midwinter, but still with the expectation of delivering a crushing
blow should the enemy accept our challenge to battle. He met us with
a plan of attack almost the counterpart of our own. In the execution
of his plan he had many advantages, not the least of which was his
intimate knowledge of the ground, and he came near destroying us.
Had he done so, Nashville would probably have fallen; at all events,
Kentucky would have been opened again to his incursions, and the
theatre of war very likely transferred once more to the Ohio River.
As the case now stood, however, Nashville was firmly established as a
base for future operations, Kentucky was safe from the possibility of
being again overrun, and Bragg, thrown on the defensive, was
compelled to give his thoughts to the protection of the interior of
the Confederacy and the security of Chattanooga, rather than indulge
in schemes of conquest north of the Cumberland River. While he still
held on in Middle Tennessee his grasp was so much loosened that only
slight effort would be necessary to push him back into Georgia, and
thus give to the mountain region of East Tennessee an opportunity to
prove its loyalty to the Union.

The victory quieted the fears of the West and Northwest, destroyed
the hopes of the secession element in Kentucky, renewed the drooping
spirits of the East Tennesseans, and demoralized the disunionists in
Middle Tennessee; yet it was a negative victory so far as concerned
the result on the battle-field. Rosecrans seems to have planned the
battle with the idea that the enemy would continue passive, remain
entirely on the defensive, and that it was necessary only to push
forward our left in order to force the evacuation of Murfreesboro';
and notwithstanding the fact that on the afternoon of December 30
McCook received information that the right of Johnson's division.
resting near the Franklin pike, extended only to about the centre of
the Confederate army, it does not appear that attack from that
quarter was at all apprehended by the Union commanders.

The natural line of retreat of the Confederates was not threatened by
the design of Rosecrans; and Bragg, without risk to his
communications, anticipated it by a counter-attack of like character
from his own left, and demolished his adversary's plan the moment we
were thrown on the defensive.